Poll: George W. Bush approval rating up post-White House

Ahead of his presidential library officially opening Thursday in Texas, former President George W. Bush’s approval rating has inched upward from the dismal numbers he had when he left office, a new poll Tuesday shows.

Bush has a 47 percent approval rating and a 50 percent disapproval, according to a ABC News/Washington survey. When Bush left office, he had a 33 percent approval rating.

“It’s not unusual for a former president to advance in public esteem after he’s left the fray of partisan politics, but neither is it guaranteed,” pollster Gary Langer, of Langer Research Associates, wrote in the release.

Bush’s average second-term approval rating was the lower among any president in modern polling, Langer noted. The poll only asked about Bush’s approval rating and not of any other presidents. Still, Langer noted that “in polls four to five years after the end of their presidencies, Bush’s father gained 18 points in approval, but Bill Clinton slipped by 4 and Ronald Reagan lost 12 [percentage points].”

Fifty-seven percent disapprove of his decision to invade Iraq, while 40 percent approve. That’s compared with the 65 percent who disapproved of the decision in 2008 and the 33 percent who approved of the decision at the time.

Bush has a 25 percent approval rating among Democrats — a 19-percentage-point increase since he left office, when only 6 percent approved of him. Among GOP-ers, it’s an 84 percent approval. For independents, 45 percent approval.

Pollsters telephoned 1,000 American adults between April 17 through April 21 and it has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.